Bringing it all together
In the days of analogue, equipment choices were less flexible than today’s
Back in the days of analogue, equipment choices were less flexible than today – but as is the case in many areas of the digital world, working in the software domain offers the musician almost too much choice. Keep your head, however, and this is actually a good thing, as there are plenty of sounds – particularly quiet or very dynamic ones – that really don’t benefit from being recorded to analogue tape.
Noise, for example, was a big issue with classical recordings, as the music’s dynamic range really pushed the capabilities of analogue tape. It’s no surprise, then, that that particular sector of the industry shifted to digital recording technologies as soon as it could. You might also have noticed that classic analogue desks, such as those by SSL and Neve, incorporated gate/ expanders on every channel, with a view to keeping tape hiss and other system noise at bay.
One of the most appealing benefits of plugin emulations, then, is that they not only put us in control of the sound with far more precision than the original gear, but also that they let us apply it ‘as needed’. This extends to controlling parameters in far more detail than is possible in the real world, including things like noise and hum, as well as tape levels, tape biasing and drive levels in general.
In the walkthrough below we’re going to bring everything together, taking our multitrack of sounds and processing each element using what we feel are the most appropriate techniques. Along the way we’ll A/B the results to hear what difference each change makes. We’ll use our previous examples as a starting point but stay open to adjusting these sounds as needed – in essence, we’ll do whatever works best for the overall picture.
Finally, we’ll look at the master buss. Although mastering is still the final stage of production, any mix engineer worth their salt will tell you that they’re already making premastering decisions at the mix stage, using stereo compression and EQ, and, if available, mixing to half-inch tape. So, our final stage will make use of a mastering tape machine for some added analogue flavour.